Teen’s reason for smuggling 390 caps

AN 18-year-old girl who allegedly internally concealed 394 MDMA capsules at a music festival at which a teenage male died last December has pleaded guilty to drug supply.

The accused teenage drug supplier has been revealed as Tina Thanh Truc Phan, an aspiring nursing student, who wept as a magistrate rejected her lawyer's claims that she had smuggled the drugs into the Knockout Games of Destiny music festival to boost her family's stretched finances.

Magistrate Louise McManus said Phan's act of smuggling the 394 capsules internally was "a criminal offence and a deliberate act".

"She is working part-time four days a week, there is money coming in," Ms McManus said.

"I don't accept she did it because of financial difficulties in the family."

Dressed in black and wearing glasses, Phan was supported by three friends as she faced Burwood Local Court.

The court heard that Phan was studious, had finished her HSC and was waiting to go to UTS in Sydney to study a Bachelor of Nursing, and that she played Oz Tag and did cross country running.